


Sank Into Your Dreams

by silvered_glass



Category: Harry Styles - Fandom, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon to Jan 2016, Frottage, Love is expressed via semi sundried tomatoes, M/M, Pizza shop not canon to actual Town Pizza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22083682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvered_glass/pseuds/silvered_glass
Summary: What if Harry and Mitch had met before Ryan pulled him into the studio that day.
Relationships: Mitch Rowland/Harry Styles
Comments: 22
Kudos: 83





	Sank Into Your Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wishforwishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishforwishes/gifts).



> Hi [Lovely M!](https://wishforwishes.tumblr.com) So happy to be writing for you, my first Hitch! I hope you like it!
> 
> Massive thank you to [La](https://ferryboatpeak.tumblr.com) and [Shifty](https://shiftylinguini.tumblr.com) for the encouragement, USA-picking, and beta-ing. You are both marvels and I am very grateful. 
> 
> Thank you so much to [Jamila](https://dearmrsawyer.tumblr.com) for organising the 1d Secret Santa!

🍕🍕🍕

The first time he becomes aware that Harry is a person who exists, Mitch is wrestling with a far too wet ball of dough. Sticky strands of the stuff cling to his glove-clad hands, and internally he’s cursing that new idiot who’s started on the day shift while Mitch had been back home over Christmas and New Year’s. The new guy’s name is Christoph, or so Mitch has gathered from the roster in the back room, and he’s clearly mismeasured the flour this morning. Christoph being shit at his job is why Mitch is looking up, so he can yell out to Tommy, who works the counter, about what a useless dick this Christoph is, but then he spots Harry.

Harry is looking directly at him. It’s a little disconcerting, to meet someone’s eyes like that. For that matter, to meet the eyes of someone like _that_. Harry is very handsome, in a sort of way that Mitch isn’t sure he’s ever seen before, or maybe noticed before. He’s young, with purple blotches under his eyes and the neon from the window lights bouncing off his pale skin, but somehow there is something in his face that’s strong. And for a moment, even as he can feel the heat rising in his cheeks, Mitch doesn’t look away.

He stands still, pulling his hands upwards trying to free them from the sticky dough, and wondering if he ever has thought someone was handsome and pretty at the same time. He doesn’t really take that much notice of other people, and he’s used to not being taken notice of. All in all it’s unsettling. 

Of course, that’s when Harry steps closer, looks over the plexiglass at the top of the barrier between the kitchen and the small seating area the restaurant has, and says, “Sticky situation.”

“Huh?” Mitch grunts, and glances to the front. It’s not busy, there’s one person placing an order with Tommy and no one else waiting. He’s not sure why this person has wandered further up the back of the shop.

“Can I help?” 

“Huh?” Mitch asks again. 

“Sorry,” the guy says, as if realising he’s done something a little out of the ordinary. He ducks his head and then smiles broadly. “‘m Harry. It just looks like you’re a bit stuck. I—”

“Are you looking for a job?” Mitch asks. That would make it make sense, why this good looking random person was staring at him. Also why he was offering to help.

The guy, _Harry_ , chuckles and shakes his head, then runs a hand through his hair. “No, just you know, being polite.”

“Oh,” Mitch has no idea what to say. He sort of hopes Tommy gets done with the guy at the counter and calls out for this guy, Harry, to head up to order.

“I used to be a baker,” Harry says.

“Did you?” Mitch asks. He thinks back to the bakery at home; no one there looked like this guy. 

“A while ago now. Can’t make pizza, though,” Harry says, and sighs as if it’s a thing that has pained him for a while.

“There’s pictures,” Mitch tells him suddenly. Harry cocks his head. “Pictures to tell you how to arrange the toppings.” He’s not sure why he felt the need to say this at all, but he did. The way Harry smiles softly, and mouths _‘oh’_ seems like reason enough though. It’s quiet between them for a moment. Mitch scoops out a handful of the dusting flour and dumps it on his uncooperative dough, and as the cloud of flour floats upwards he glances at Harry. He’s looking straight back at him again.

“So what’s the difference between _vegorama_ and _vegilicious_?” Harry asks with a smirk.

Mitch has to stop and make sure he’s understood the words Harry just asked because there is something in the smirk that makes Mitch think maybe Harry just used a pick up line, or said something a lot more lascivious than asking the difference between pizza toppings.

“Peppers mainly, red peppers,” Mitch replies, mouth a little dry. 

“Next!” Tommy calls out and Harry glances to the front.

“That’ll be me,” he says to Mitch. “Thanks for the expertise, um—”

“Mitch,” Mitch tells him.

“The difference is peppers, so says Mitch,” Harry says softly and turns away and goes to the counter.

Mitch grabs a ticket out of the printer and heads further back into the kitchen, keeps his eyes down and circles the tomato sauce with hitherto unseen care and attention.

🍕

He comes back the next night. Mitch doesn’t see him at first. It’s late, near closing, and the other guy who works in the kitchen with him has already gone home. Mitch is hidden up the back, leaning against the sink and listening to Willie Nelson. He hears the murmur of Tommy taking an order and when it comes out of the printer Mitch leaves the sink and comes back out front to make the pie.

“Hi,” says a voice. It’s Harry in a misshapen t-shirt that looks old but somehow like it doesn’t fit Harry. It’s misshapen and stretched, but not in the way it would be if it was Harry’s own. 

“Hi,” Mitch answers.

“ _Is_ Cleveland cold?” Harry asks.

Mitch looks up sharply from where he’s scattering olives. “How did you—” Mitch starts

“This song, Willie's singing that Cleveland’s cold, and when I was there last it was during August, I think it was really warm.”

“Oh, right, um. I guess any place gets cold.”

Harry grins, and looks down. Mitch could swear he’s blushing a little. “Yeah, good point.”

Harry goes and sits at a table at the side facing towards Mitch. The song has changed to Tammy Wynette and Harry seems to know the words. Mitch can’t hear him clearly but he’s mouthing along with _Two Story House_. Mitch puts extra semi-sun dried tomatoes on his pizza.

🍕

Mitch has two days off, which he spends getting high, fucking around with Ryan on a new riff, and thoroughly pissing his neighbor off by playing through the amp far too late at night, if her banging on the wall is anything to go by. When Ryan goes to work in the afternoon Mitch listlessly watches whatever appears on his Netflix recommendations while eating Captain Crunch out of the box. His mom calls and asks if he’s coming home again soon, says that she barely got to see him when he was back over at Christmas, and he lies and says sure, of course. Then he lays awake that night and thinks about the overcast cold of January back home in Columbus.

🍕

When Harry walks in at ten minutes before closing time on Mitch’s first shift back, Mitch’s stomach leaps. He acknowledges he’s been waiting, hoping. He’s left a pan with the dough still worked out to the edges and hasn’t turned the oven off yet, even though the girl on the counter tonight has counted the till up already. 

“Don’t worry about it, Sal.” Mitch calls out as she looks up from where she’s sat leaning against the counter tapping at her phone. She glances at Harry and then at Mitch and then back at Harry, her mouth forming a circle. Mitch goes up the front and gently pushes at the center of her back. “Come on, you go home, I’ll close up. I think that’s your girlfriend in the Toyota outside, yeah?”

“You are telling me _everything_ tomorrow, Rowland,” she hisses as she lets him maneuver her out the other side of the counter and unties her apron. “Everything!” She throws the apron in his face.

Mitch turns around as the door swings shut behind Sal and swallows. Harry’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and has sunglasses in his hair. He looks a little more tanned than he did a week ago, but somehow still a bit torn at the edges. A little scattered.

“I’ll make you a pizza,” Mitch offers.

“Thank you,” Harry says politely, then pulls at his bottom lip with his thumb and index finger. He seems a bit more absent than he has on other nights. He turns and walks back towards the door, then stares outside while Mitch drops toppings over the pie. He’s probably the same height as Mitch is, but he’s standing with his shoulders slouched downwards and looks smaller at the moment. Mitch slides the pizza into the oven and goes over to the front counter, flips the neon sign off. 

Harry looks up at him and gives him a half smile. “When it’s ready, would you want to go for a drive with me?”

Mitch swallows again, looks Harry in the eye and nods. “Yeah.”

🍕

Harry’s gone out to bring his car round, he said, and Mitch has thrown the last of the prep ingredients into the walk-in fridge, flipped off the oven and then stopped to change his t-shirt. He stuffs his uniform polo into his backpack and pulls his hair out of its band. He washes his hands to get the last of the powder from the Latex gloves off them and, catching sight of himself in the cracked mirror above the sink, he ties his hair back up again.

Mitch double checks the oven is off and goes out the front, pulling down the roller shutter and locking it then awkwardly looking around for a car that Harry might have. The tinted window of a fucking Range Rover winds down and Harry’s face appears, smiling too much and waving him over.

Mitch checks for traffic and slides in quickly, his backpack clinking as he drops it into the footwell.

Harry looks down at it and up at Mitch questioningly.

“I bought some wine for my neighbor, pissed her off playing too much guitar this weekend.”

“You play guitar?”

“Yeah, that's why I moved out here, to LA.”

Harry flicks on his turn signal and pulls out without looking. “Where are you from?”

“Ohio.” Mitch drums his fingers on the hand-rest. The car smells like the _vegilicious_ that Mitch just made Harry, the seats are very comfortable, but he’s on edge. “What about you?” Mitch asks automatically. 

Harry looks at him for too long for someone who’s driving. “I’m Harry. I’m from England,” he answers. 

Mitch feels like there’s a joke he’s not getting. Maybe just that the accent is meant to be obvious. “Never know,” he says lightly.

“So, are you in a band, or solo?”

“Yeah, me and a mate from school. Don’t ask my neighbor for a review though,” Mitch jokes.

Harry laughs then asks a little softer, “Hey, do you want to go to the beach?”

Mitch glances over at Harry, one elbow on the door, hands not at ten to two. Lights from the street are bouncing off his face. How long is his hair if he takes it down? Mitch deliberately doesn’t look at his hands again.

“Yeah,” he agrees. 

Harry hits something on his phone and Tom Petty fills the car, the first whine of the guitar intro to _Into the Great Wide Open_ plays out on the car’s speakers. When Harry starts singing along at the chorus, Mitch stops drumming his fingers and just listens.

They drive out to Malibu. It seems to take forever, the playlist is utterly random and Harry will often unabashedly hit repeat on a song. He listens to _Ultralight Beam_ three times in a row and sings along with it. By the third time Mitch is joining in. Harry’s got a great voice. Mitch doesn’t tell him though, just tries to blend in with him. Can't help but finger the chords on his palm of his left hand, his right strumming across his thigh. Harry glances down at Mitch’s hand on occasion, and at first Mitch stops. He’s not used to someone glancing at his upper leg. But as they drive on, doing a bit over sixty and with the windows down even though the wind is a little biting at that speed, Mitch stops caring. 

They’ve driven through the shops and beach access of what Mitch knows of Malibu before Harry finally turns off the highway and down what's marked as a private road. He pulls into a gate that slides open when he hits something on his phone. 

“Shit.” Mitch says softly. It’s fancy as fuck. 

“It’s a friend’s home, they’re away,” Harry says as he parks the car. 

“You’ll have to introduce me,” Mitch says. “Could do with some friends with a place like this.” 

Mitch follows him up the stairs and waits as Harry puts in the code for the alarm. Harry slips his shoes off in the entryway, so Mitch does as well. Carrying his backpack, he follows Harry up a blond wood staircase and into a large, open glass-walled living room. Harry walks straight through and opens a huge sliding door to go outside again onto a deck. It’s black out there, no moon, nothing but the ocean and the noise from the waves rising up. The air is mild and salty and Mitch stands next to Harry, leaning against the railing.

He takes a deep breath and another, relishing the warmth in his throat and stretching his chest and stomach out as he fills his lungs until it hurts, then says, “It’s funny how they say air is nothing when it’s not at all.”

Harry turns slightly so he’s looking at him. “What do you mean?”

Mitch already feels himself blushing. He needs to learn to shut the fuck up, to only say these things to Ryan. He can never explain this stuff. 

“Like, the air has a taste, but people say lighter than air, but it’s not, air is more than lighter, it’s different in different places. Feels different when you breathe,” Mitch babbles.

“Or run your hand through it,” Harry says, holding his hands out in front of him, fingers spread. “In Thailand the air felt humid, like I could touch it.”

Mitch nods, “Yeah, I mean, I haven’t been to Thailand, but July back home it can feel like you’re walking through something, like the air is runny warm Jell-O.” Mitch stops talking, what a dumb fucking analogy. Standing on some fancy deck overlooking the midnight black ocean with some stupidly handsome guy and he’s pulling out Jell-O metaphors.

“Yeah,” Harry sighs then, “I know what you mean. Gelatinous.”

They stand still for a moment. Mitch can feel the handle on his backpack cutting into his finger where it hangs against his leg.

Harry breaks the silence, turning to Mitch., “Can we drink your neighbor wine?” with a smirk on his face that shows his dimples, as if Harry already knows the answer will be yes, but also wants to charm Mitch in case it might be no.

Mitch picks up the bag and unlatches the gate to the steps that lead down to the beach. “I think it’ll be horrid. I got change from a twenty.”

Harry’s not a still person. This is okay, Mitch is good at being still. Well, he normally is. Harry makes him feel as if things shift underneath him and suddenly he’s moving as well. Harry has his arm around his shoulders one moment, Mitch sitting up straighter and trying to roll his shoulders back. Make them feel not as boney or narrow. Then Harry’s got a hand on Mitch’s thigh, body turned towards Mitch’s and eyes shining wet and wide in the light thrown down from the fancy houses behind him.

He’s talking about a friend of his who crashed his car, not a bad accident, it’s a funny story. They’ve talked about music, Fleetwood Mac, which had followed on from Tom Petty, Mitch thinks. Then about pasta. Harry’s lips are stained from the wine. Mitch knows his will be as well. 

“I’m good at tight corners,” Mitch says. It’s not a boast, just a statement. Harry blinks at him, takes the bottle from his hand with fingers that rest on top of Mitch’s for longer than they need, but which Mitch misses when Harry finally pulls the bottle away from Mitch’s grasp. 

“Lots of cul de sacs where I grew up, always spinning the wheel around,” Mitch explains, moving his hands as if he’s turning a tight circle in a car without power steering.

“I learnt in a carpark at a supermarket,” Harry says. “But then it was hard to get regular practice, I was always somewhere else, someplace new. Felt like it took ages to get my license.”

Mitch doesn’t know if Harry’s making some sort of metaphorical statement. He seems the type and if that's the case Mitch isn’t sure that he wants to understand it. “You been in L.A long?” he asks instead.

“On and off for ages now,” says Harry. Mitch turns to look at him properly, to try to work out if he’s being enigmatic. Harry dimples like he knows he’s being annoying, and tips his head back to drain the last of the bottle. Mitch watches him swallow. He hasn’t kissed a guy before, he would though. Harry’s hand drops onto Mitch’s thigh again, as if Harry can read Mitch’s mind.

“Do you have another bottle?” Harry asks.

Mitch reaches for his backpack and rummages for it. 

Two thirds of the bottle gone and Mitch is explaining why corn doesn’t go on pizza, not even for people from Ohio. Harry insists it’s good, swears it’s what the vegetarian options at Town Pizza need when he stops mid sentence and says, “You know when you get a bit lonely, but you just—,” he breaks off.

“No excuse to put corn on a fucking pizza,” Mitch says with an exaggerated grouchiness.

Harry seems to have completely forgotten what they were saying, though, He has no reaction, just takes another swig of the bottle then wipes his mouth with the back of hand. Mitch can see a dark drop of liquid there, light glinting off it. 

“I mean, we all get lonely,” Mitch tries. He leans his body against Harry’s, lets his knee fall down on top of Harry’s thigh.

“Go with my instincts.” Harry mumbles. “Only thing I can do, not working in the studio at the moment though.”

Mitch turns to look at Harry. He’s going to ask what he does―fancy car, friends who own fancy Malibu houses, traveled a lot. Knows the words to Willie Nelson and Tom Petty, looks like a fucking model. Instead Mitch looks at Harry’s lips, and then back at his eyes. And then they kiss each other. 

Mitch isn’t sure how it gets dirty so quickly. He knows he slides his hand around Harry’s jaw, tips his face so he’s at a better angle. But Harry’s got busy hands that grab at Mitch’s t-shirt and pull him closer in a way that none of the people Mitch has kissed up until now have done. He’s not sure if that is because they have all been girls, or just because Harry is Harry. Mitch doesn’t have time to properly think about it, though, as Harry twists and sort of flops on top of him, knees in-between Mitch’s legs and body heavy on top of Mitch’s.

Mitch doesn’t mind. It’s nice, a weight to match the way the way Harry kisses, all needy and deep and slick and _there_. Red wine, and a clash of teeth, and a hand next to Mitch’s shoulder in the sand. Harry slides his other hand up under Mitch’s t-shirt, he’s not at all hesitant and it gives Mitch the freedom to follow. 

He arches his head up to break their kiss and Harry slides his lips down his throat, fingers scratching at Mitch’s nipple. Mitch isn’t sure that he’s got anywhere else to put his hands but on Harry’s ass. He slips his hand up under Harry’s shirt, feels the warmth of his skin before reaching down and cupping his ass through his jeans. 

Harry groans softly then, shifts his hips against Mitch, and Mitch can feel how hard he is against him. MItch stops kissing Harry back, pulls away and lifts his hips up against Harry, holding them still to get his attention. 

Even the scattered lights shining down on them Harry looks undone, lips stained red, not just from wine but from kisses. 

“Is it okay?” Harry asks.

Mitch is going to say he hasn’t done this before, that he’s not sure what this is, that he thinks he might come just at the idea of it but also that if he thinks about it too much he might not come at all. Instead he brings his free hand up and runs a thumb along the edge of Harry’s mouth. Harry lets him for a moment, before he turns and sucks it into his mouth. Swirling his tongue around it, eyes dancing as Mitch swears and rolls them over, laughing.

It’s not long then, and it’s fittingly messy. Mitch gets on top of Harry, their hips lined up and their dicks hard in their pants still. He had some concept that at some stage he’d unzip Harry’s jeans or something. But it’s fucking impossible to stop kissing Harry, and Harry’s rutting upwards, and Mitch is pretty sure nothing has felt as new or perfect or fucking hot as it has since grade nine down in Kristen Mason’s parents basement.

Harry comes quietly, but unabashedly. He doesn’t try to hold it back, he just grabs Mitch’s ass and stops kissing him properly, instead mouthing at him, and gasping while he freezes up, left leg twitching as he shudders. Mitch is overcome enough by the whole damn thing that he comes too. Looking down at Harry’s blissed out face, ridiculous lips curving into a satisfied grin even as Mitch is still coming.

“Fuck yes, Mitch,” Harry sighs, rolling his hips for emphasis. 

Mitch can only laugh, and kiss the side of Harry’s face and then roll off the top of him and flop onto the sand. It’s already uncomfortable in his underpants and jeans. But before he can second guess anything else Harry has rolled over on his side, puts his leg over Mitch’s in a need to be closer.

“Come in and have a shower, I’ll give you trackpants.”

Mitch takes a deep breath of the salty air, and nods. “Yeah, alright.”

🍕

When Ryan calls instead of texting, Mitch knows it’s important. He’s just about to start his shift though, and there's no way he can just walk back out the door and go and jam with this guy Ryan is recording with.

Mitch heads down to the studio the next day. His name checked off a list he's waved out back by a bored receptionist, left to walk down a narrow dark hallway on his own. Mitch _knows_ before Ryan opens the door, he can hear a voice leaking out from the mixing room, raspy and with depth, and then it stops and there’s a shout of laughter. Mitch has never been so thankful for a shout of laughter in his life. It means he has a moment to still his face, a moment to practice not reacting. A moment that means when Ryan opens the studio door and ushers him inside, introduces him to Harry Styles, that Mitch can shake Harry’s hand and look him in his disconcerting eyes and not let his stomach flip over inside him too much. Of course then Harry starts to smirk a little, and Mitch feels the corner of his mouth twitch in response.

“Get the cheapest bottle of red you’ve got out of the cupboard, Ryan,” Harry says jubilantly and plays a horrid exaggerated chord on the goldentop guitar on his lap. 

Mitch very deliberately doesn’t smile.

🍕🍕🍕

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Pancho and Lefty by Willie Nelson. Other songs mentioned are Two Story House by Tammy Wynette and George Jones, and The Great Wide Open by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (which has a refrain that says 'The sky was the limit' - which post SNL cracks me up.)
> 
> Thank you for reading. I'm [silveredsound](https://silveredsound.tumblr.com/post/190014158595/sank-into-your-dreams-by-silveredglass-a-gift) on tumblr if you'd like to chat.  
> This fic must live here and here alone.  
> 


End file.
